Koko a cinch for Senate top post

Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

BALER, Aurora—Barring radical shifts in alliances, Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III will likely become the new Senate president when the 17th Congress opens on July 25.

Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara said this Tuesday, expecting Pimentel to be a shoo-in for the Senate presidency as he has secured the backing of more than half of the 24-member chamber.

“I’m not aware of any changes. I think the 14 or 15 signatories to [the resolution supporting] Sen. Pimentel have no intention of withdrawing their signatures, unless there’s something I don’t know,” Angara said.

“I think it should hold because that’s the commitment [of the signatories]. I’ve seen the [resolution] with the signatures,” he said in an interview on the sidelines of the Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day celebration here.

14 votes

Angara is among the 14 senators who have, so far, signed a resolution endorsing the election as Senate president of Pimentel, president of Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), President Rodrigo Duterte’s party.

Angara is the lone member of Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) party in the Senate.

The LDP, founded and chaired by Angara’s father, former Senate President Edgardo J. Angara, had endorsed Duterte’s presidential bid. The elder Angara was the longest-serving senator when he retired in 2013, having been elected to four consecutive terms.

Pimentel is the son of former Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr., himself a Senate president under the presidency of Joseph Estrada.

Duterte’s defeated running mate, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, a member of the Nacionalista Party, is also in the running for the Senate’s coveted seat. Cayetano is the son of the late Sen. Rene Cayetano.

Not talking

Pimentel has said he was open to talking to Cayetano to encourage him to join the Senate majority. The two, however, have yet to meet.

Outgoing Senate President Franklin Drilon said last month that most members of the Senate—those from the Liberal Party, Nationalist People’s Coalition and the LDP—had already agreed that Pimentel would be his successor.

“The earliest that he can be elected is July 25. So between now and then, still technically anything is possible. But I don’t foresee any changes,” Angara said.

Small minority

With the emergence of a “super majority” in both houses of Congress, the Senate may be expected to have a small minority.

Those that could form the minority bloc are defeated vice presidential candidates Francis Escudero and Antonio Trillanes IV. No word yet on where the allegiance of returning Senators Richard Gordon and Juan Miguel Zubiri, and Sen. Cynthia Villar, spouse of former Sen. Manuel Villar, lies.

Reelected Sen. Ralph Recto was “still thinking of joining” the minority, said Angara.